


Lifetimes Apart

by vega_voices



Series: Patience [1]
Category: In Plain Sight
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-19
Updated: 2010-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-19 18:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices





	Lifetimes Apart

_**Fic: In Plain Sight - Lifetimes Apart**_  
 **Title:** Lifetimes Apart  
 **Author:** [](http://vegawriters.livejournal.com/profile)[**vegawriters**](http://vegawriters.livejournal.com/)  
 **Fandom:** In Plain Sight  
 **Pairing:** Mary/Raphael; Marshall/OFC; Mary/Marshall (angst; UST)  
 **Rating:** Teen; some mature concepts  
 **Genre:** Partnership fiction with some angst thrown in.  
 **Timeframe:** Set directly after _Ponzi_. Why exactly is Marshall so angry with Mary and why perhaps was he quite so upset after she was shot in _Don’t Cry For Me_?  
 **A/N:** In honor of Pa Mann, I give you Marshall backstory. Hanky warning. I needed it.  
 **Disclaimer:** I think I've proved that they own me. Seriously.

The words ripped through him, striking harder than usual, even though they were delivered with her usual wit and acerbic charm.

 _“Not that I’d wish that hell on any woman …”_

Marshall knew she didn’t mean it. He knew it was her way of saying that whomever he someday did marry would be lucky, and he took it as such. Mary was the girl who flirted by kicking you in the shins and running away. But in the wake of her engagement to Raphael, the words stung.

Especially as he realized that she’d told Raphael. She’d told him their shared secret.

His mind reeled with all possible issues, not the least of which that by telling her affianced, she was revealing to him what Marshall did for a living. Marshall knew he was her confessor, but this was too much. Too fucking much.

Because once, a lifetime ago, Marshall Mann had been engaged and he’d made the choice to not break protocol.

He stared at Mary as she walked out, muttering something about how a witness needed a ride to work and he sat there, insulted and enraged and wondering if the fugitive task force would take him back. His cover was blown.

But so was Mary’s.

And the fact that she’d confessed meant she felt guilty. That she knew she shouldn’t have done it.

But in life, some things you couldn’t take back.

Tossing a twenty down to cover breakfast (it had been his treat after all) Marshall stormed out but he didn’t follow his partner. He needed time and space and to forgive her for simply being human.

***

  
 **2002**

 _“Listen to the voices of the old women …Listen to the voices of the old women …”_

Her clear voice echoed through the adobe house. Marshall chuckled and toed out of his boots, lining them next to the black leather flats on the tray by the door. Slowly, he made his way through the three bedroom home, following the smell of curry and basmati rice. He paused in the kitchen doorway, watching the sway of a slender waist and long hair so brown it was red. Olive skin contrasted with the white top that clung to each curve. Black, boot cut linen pants flared out to the tops of long feet and toes topped off with bright red nails.

“Stop staring, Marshall, and come cut a vegetable or two, would you?” Michaela Amarnath turned and crossed her arms over her chest. “And you’re home earlier than I planned.”

“What, you have another boyfriend coming by? Because if he’s here as much as I’m gone, he’s got to kick in for the mortgage.” A deep chuckle sent shivers through to his toes and he walked forward, pressing his lips to the jewel in the middle of her forehead before he kissed her deeply. It had been three days since he’d held her. Three days too long.

“He’s coming by at five. I told him he had an hour.” She winked and pushed him toward the pile of uncut vegetables. “How was your trip?”

“Boring.” Marshall shrugged. It was the truth. When it came to witness transport, this last one had simply been completely unremarkable. The conversation with the other marshals had alternated between mind-numbing and racially charged. Even the witness was boring. “What about you? How was work?”

It was Michaela’s turn to shrug. “Another day, another man beating his wife.” She sighed and turned to him, a piece of fresh ginger in her hands. “It’s something I still don’t understand.”

“What?”

“What makes a man beat his wife like she’s nothing more than an animal. My mother left India before she could be married into a family that could do that to her and my father left Pakistan after he watched his father beat his mother nearly to death. And then they come to a country that is rampant with abuse!”

“I think,” Marshall sighed, “in a culture that seems to enforce that we are only the sum of our parts, we are more likely to lash out at those who seem vulnerable.”

“In other words, I need to stop trying to analyze why people treat each other like shit?”

Marshall grinned. “Yes.” He snaked his arms out and around her. “Because when you think too hard you get headaches and I don’t want to beg later.”

The laughter that echoed in the kitchen eased any lingering stress Marshall felt for the day and confirmed for him what he really wanted to spend the night doing. “You want to go for a drive after dinner? Just get out of the house and go somewhere together?”

“Just you and me and no cell phones?”

“You’re not on call?”

“No. You?”

“No.”

“Then yes.” She kissed his nose. “So let’s finish cooking.”

Marshall watched her turn back to the pot. How would his old team feel, knowing that he shacked up with someone they would have wanted to interrogate on the off chance her Pakistani father had some random tie to a group that rhymed with al-Qaeda? Witsec didn’t have the adrenaline rush of the fugitive task force or even the undercover airline work, but it was what drove him. Eight months into the program and he’d realized this was his calling. Six months into his relationship with Michaela and he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with this cop turned victim advocate.

“Let’s take it with us,” he said, turning to the cupboard that held the stacks of Tupperware. “We’ll just go out to the desert and eat curry and talk.”

“That sounds nice, actually.” She touched his belt loops as she passed by to the fridge. “Marshall, go shower. You smell like work. I’ll finish up in here.”

He chuckled. “Yes Ma’am.”

***

  
Marshall stood at the ridge of the Mesa, not sure what force had put him in his car and brought him to this place, but he stared out at the desert as it tucked into itself in the mid-morning heat and forced himself to breathe.

She was tall, that’s what he remembered most about her. That she stood eye to eye with him and didn’t flinch. That and almond eyes with iris’ so black they were blue, and how they had golden flecks that turned pink in the pre-dawn light.

A cop turned victims advocate, Michaela Amarnath worked as much as he did, her life entwined with victims of domestic abuse and rape. The horrors she witnessed daily haunted her nights and they stayed up late together, watching Mystery Science Theater and eating ice cream and making love to chase the demons away. She liked to read and she liked to sing and to dance and most importantly, she loved him almost as much as he loved her.

It was a chance meeting. He’d been standing, staring blankly at the selection of tomatoes in the store, his mind on a witness and not produce, and she brushed by him, her hair tickling his skin. Entire romantic comedies had been written about that moment and she turned and laughed and handed him a cluster of tomatoes and her phone number.

Six months later, down on one knee as the sun set over the red rocks of the desert, Marshall had asked her to marry him and the setting sun glinted off the diamonds on her hand as she said yes and kissed him and they made love on the red and brown blanket beneath them.

***

  
 **2003**

“So you boys hear, Marshall Mann is finally getting married!” A round of beers went up and Marshall rolled his eyes, nervous with the public display. “You got a picture of the poor girl?”

He did. He had two. Her engagement photo – the white sari wrapped elegantly around her body, her hair falling to her waist, the jewel in her forehead glittering right along with the jewel on her finger. And the one they’d taken together – him in a black shirt and black pants, the contrast to the white silk of the garment draped around her.

“Whooooo,” catcalled one of the team as the photo of the two of them went around the table, “how’d you land this one and get her past the IA background checks. You know how they feel.”

The surge of anger was clear on his face. “She used to be a cop. She’s a US citizen. And shut the fuck up.” If there was anything marshals understood, it was fighting fire with cussing. The picture came back to his hands and he tucked it into his wallet again.

“No hard feelings, Mann,” piped up the guy next to him. “They’re just playing.” Marshall rolled his eyes. He’d left the fugitive task force because he was tired of the playing. “When’s the day your freedom ends?”

“Three months,” he made a point to not say the date. He didn’t want any of these idiots showing up and ruining the moment. For the fifth time in an hour, he checked his phone. Kay was supposed to call.

“Look at him, tied to his phone.” The heckler chuckled. “Marshall’s already whipped.”

The phone buzzed and Marshall, gratefully, stepped away from the group and outside the bar into the silence of the alley. “Hello?”

 _“Is this Marshall Mann?”_

Marshall froze. He knew that tone. He’d made this call once himself. “Yes …” no no no. Let it be his brother or his father. Anyone but –

“This is Captain Alfonzo at Albuquerque PD. I’m sorry but I …”

The words faded out. Some part of his brain registered everything, but he couldn’t breathe.

 _“I’ll see you later, baby,”_ she’d whispered as he finished packing his bags for this witness transfer. They’d kissed and he’d been late because she was so tempting. When she’d called last night, she’d regaled him with details of her mother’s attempts to find a perfect sari for the wedding and how she’d threatened to elope and send back wedding pictures from Vegas.

The last words he’d said to her were _I love you_. At least he had that. He’d whispered it as she dozed off, before hanging up the phone and falling asleep missing her and woke up missing her and now, he knew, he’d miss her for the rest of his life.

***

It was something he’d never told Mary. Not in all their years together. It was what he didn’t dare tell her while he was bleeding to death internally in the heat of the New Mexico desert. He told her the truth: that sometimes, acting as her keeper was simply too much, and that sometimes, he wasn’t sure how to react to her. He didn’t tell her that one reason he was so desperate to leave was that he’d fallen in love with her. He’d dared to fall in love with someone other than Michaela and the knowledge of his betrayal of their relationship almost killed him. He needed to be away, away from Mary and the job and the small little treasures that reminded him of the life before and the life now.

He’d never expected Mary to quietly reveal herself in bits and pieces that day. Just like he’d never expected Mary to accept Raphael’s proposal.

He was angry. He had every right and no right to feel like he did and he blamed it on his hangover, but honestly, he was simply angry. Angry at Raphael for proposing and Mary for saying yes and Mary for telling Raphael the truth about their work.

He was still angry at Michaela for stepping in front of a bullet meant for the beaten wife she was protecting.

With a sigh, Marshall knelt at the grave. Still decorated with flags and flowers, she’d been one of ABQPD’s own, even after she left the unit for civilian work. She’d been shot on their call. They’d known she was engaged to a US Marshal. She was family, still, all these years later.

“Hey, Kay,” Marshall whispered, tracing the lines of her name on the marble headstone. Dust and grit from the last sand storm came off on his fingers. “Sorry I haven’t come by in a while. I …” He blinked, tears still touching his eyes even all these years later. “I’ve been busy with work and … it’s no excuse.”

Shaking hands set the flowers down amid the other bouquets. Lilies. She’d loved lilies. He’d learned to grow and keep them in the desert climate because she loved them. Sitting cross legged, he stared at the stone, tears streaming from his eyes. He missed her, daily, the way she’d rub his shoulders after a long day and how she never asked about his job because she understood there were some things people in law enforcement couldn’t talk about. He missed how she sang while she cooked and how she taught him to speak Farsi and how her mother’s family gathered together on their holidays and always made him feel welcome.

Every Christmas, her mother still sent a card and he called her on her New Years.

And Mary still didn’t know.

She had a right to know. Just like he had a right to know the real reason she’d told Raphael about what she really did for a living.

***

  
 **2003**

He wanted them to wail. He wanted Michaela’s mother to cry and scream and for her father to stand perfectly rigid and in his grief. He wanted them to wail because he couldn’t. He couldn’t move. Marshall listened to the sobbing of her friends and her coworkers but the family was perfectly silent. It terrified him.

They gathered, a mix of cops in dress uniform and advocates in their funeral best and her family in their saris. Colors and tears and clouds that loomed at the edges of the city, building and building and waiting to explode with the tears Marshall had yet to be able to cry.

They all filed by. Her partner in crime and best friend, who broke down and clung to him and Marshall wanted nothing more than to hold her tightly but push her away. Her boss, who wept angrily as she threw the white lily into the abyss that held the coffin. The poor, rookie cop who mishandled the scene, making rookie mistakes anyone had made their first year. His boss, looking pale and drawn, who stood at his side and supported him and who held onto the white lilies rather than casting them forth.

Her father embraced him. Her mother leaned against him. His father stood silent and still. His mother hid her tears behind dark sunglasses. His brothers had not come.

When the priest asked him to speak, no words came.

***

  
The house was quiet. He went around back, worried that he’d interrupt Mary and Raphael, but he steeled himself. She loved Raph, not him. He had to get used to that. But Mary was alone, stretched out under the arbor, a book in her hands but she was asleep, a rare thing for her.

Gently, he walked forward. She startled and reached for her gun (of course her gun was nearby) and blinked when she saw him, holding a six pack of her favorite beer. “We have to talk,” he said, softly, and realized how close the tears were.

“Okay.” Mary rubbed her eyes and set the book aside. He settled next to her and instead of handing over the beer, he handed her the only picture he still had of Michaela – her engagement announcement photograph. “Who is this?”

“You asked the other day, if I ever thought I’d get married. I almost did once.”

“Marshall …” He heard the hitch in her voice but he couldn’t look at her. Not yet. “What …”

“Michaela. She was …” he choked on the story and didn’t realize Mary was holding his hand until he moved to dry his eyes. “She was shot and killed three months before we were supposed to get married.”

“Cop?”

“Used to be. She worked with the victims advocacy center. She was on a DV call and the perp came back, high on PCP and totally crazy and before the uniforms could take him down, he fired three rounds into the house. Two missed but one struck Kay and she died at the scene.”

“Marshall …I …”

He stared at the ring on her finger, the ring that belonged to another man, and not for the first time since he’d met Mary, he cursed the bullet that had taken Michaela from him. He was trapped now, the only other woman he’d ever dared to love and he had to watch her live her life with someone else.

“She understood me, Mary. She just let me be me. She teased me about my love of Star Trek even while settling down to watch and she went with me to those stuffy officer functions and she made the world’s best baklava.” He sucked in a breath, his skin aching as he stroked the face in the picture.

“You never mentioned her when we were first partnered.”

“She died right before I met you. I was on a prisoner transport when I got the call. I flew home but of course it was too late.”

“Marshall, I’m sorry.” The words so rarely came with any force and meaning from her that Marshall looked up and saw the tears in her eyes. She reached forward and dried his cheeks. “If I’d known …”

“I didn’t want you to know. I still don’t want to know, Mary. That’s the thing. Every time I go on a date or kiss another woman, I still feel like I’m betraying Kay. She’s been gone six years and I still expect her to walk through the door and kick off her shoes and start singing some Indian folk song while she cooks. I’m still surprised when I get home at night and dinner isn’t on the table. I still look for the note on the fridge telling me she’s been called to a scene and that she’ll call when she can and that if I want food, I’m on my own.” He stared at their linked fingers. “It’s the real reason I got so angry at you for telling Raphael what we do. I never got the chance to tell her. I wanted to, but I was completely bound to the rules and regs and I didn’t dare breathe a word of it. In my mind, it was bad enough that she knew I was a marshal. And here you are, telling Raphael and it hit, harder than I realized it would. It reminded me I’m never going to get over losing her, even if I do someday get married.”

“Marshall, any woman would be lucky to have you.” Her soft voice soothed him. “And there are times …” she sighed. “There are times when I wish we’d met under different circumstances.”

“Me too,” he sucked in a breath. “And when I see you with Raphael, I just want Kay to walk in the door again.”

Mary shook her head then, tenderly, her hands still resting on his face. “Marshall, she’s never going to. You have to let yourself move on, and forgive yourself for doing it.”

He’d never wanted to kiss her more than he had right in that moment. Grabbing her hands from his cheeks, he pressed his lips to her knuckles and bit the inside of his cheek. She was his partner, she was someone else’s girl, and if he did exactly what he wanted to right now, she’d give in but it would be nothing more than a pity fuck and they were both above that. So he kissed her knuckles and pressed his forehead against her hand …

… and cried.

 _~fin~_


End file.
